Unfortunately, punctual meeting participants all too frequently have to wait patiently for latecomers to arrive at a meeting location. This is not only a source of frustration for the punctual meeting participant, but the time that the punctual meeting participant spends waiting for latecomers to arrive could usually be put to better use. Similarly, under some circumstances, a meeting participant might not be able to commit to arriving at the meeting location at a specific time. Under such circumstances, the other meeting participants might not want to gather at the meeting location until they are sure that the uncertain participant is going to arrive shortly. If a meeting participant is running late, he or she might be inclined to rush to get to the meeting, only to learn that other participants are running late as well.
In each of these scenarios, one or more of the meeting participants might like to know whether or not the other meeting participants are at or near the meeting location. For example, if the punctual meeting participant knew that the other meeting participants were not yet at the meeting location, then the punctual meeting participant could wait until the other participants were about to arrive before going to the meeting location himself. If the other meeting participants knew that the uncertain arrival was just about to arrive at the meeting location, then they could make their way to the meeting themselves. Similarly, the meeting participant who is running late could determine whether to take his time, rush to the meeting, call the meeting location to announce that he will be late, etc.
It would be advantageous, therefore, if systems and methods were available to monitor the current location of one or more meeting participants, and provide notification that one or more meeting participants are within a specified distance of the meeting location.